The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
DEER
Definition of DEER
noun
A ruminant mammal with hooves and often antlers, of the family Cervidae, or one of several similar animals from related families of the order Artiodactyla, such as the musk deer or mouse deer.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English der, deer (“animal, deer”), from Old English dēor (“animal”), from Proto-West Germanic *deuʀ, from Proto-Germanic *deuzą, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewsóm (“living thing”), from *dʰéws (“breath”), full-grade derivative of *dʰwes-. Cognate with Scots deer (“deer”), North Frisian dier (“animal, beast”), West Frisian dier (“animal, beast”), Dutch dier (“animal, beast”), German Low German Deer, Deert (“animal”), German Tier (“animal, beast”), Swedish djur (“animal, beast”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk dyr (“animal, beast”), Icelandic dýr (“animal, beast”). Related also to Albanian dash (“ram”) (possibly), Lithuanian daũsos (“upper air; heaven”), Lithuanian dùsti (“to sigh”), Russian душа́ (dušá, “breath, spirit”), Lithuanian dvė̃sti (“to breathe, exhale”), Sanskrit ध्वंसति (dhvaṃsati, “he falls to dust”). For the semantic development compare Latin animālis (“animal”), from anima (“breath, spirit”).
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
4 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
2nd
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
14.2%
of traced words share this origin (11,843)
How it is built
Same root, DEER · 2 relatives in the game
Its etymology also names Danish, Dutch, Icelandic, Latin, Norwegian, Russian, Sanskrit, Scots and 1 more.
Every Proto-Indo-European word → · The Word DNA of OUTLIER →
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
DEER in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 15 boards so far. 14 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 7, 28 May 2026. The most recent board was Day 159, 26 October 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 9 days.
First found by a player on Day 7, 28 May 2026.
Built from these letters
DEER starts with D and ends with R. Sorted, its letters read DEER - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. E appears more than once, including a double letter.
Same letters, different word
5 other words use exactly these letters. Worth knowing at the board: an anagram fits a grid the same way.
Words that start DEER
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 7
Could you have found DEER?
OUTLIER is a daily word game. One grid, the same grid for everybody, and the words nobody else spots are the ones that pay. This word was on Day 7 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER